Audio Popping after Lion Upgrade

Same problem here. 2008 Mac Pro (2.8 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 10.7.1) with optical connection to Logitech speaker system. Please address this ASAP - I always listen to music when I'm working, and it's getting bothersome.

This just took the popping away on my Macbook.

Thanks!

Sadly restarting coreaudio didn't work for me 😟

Mine has been popping, as well.

I use Airtunes and had my iTunes set up for multiple speakers.

When I took off my remote speakers and selected just the computer, the popping went away.

So maybe it's an Airport / Airtunes problem?

This happens to me too! and I'm using snow leopard. I thought it was my system at first, so I did everything from resetting the nvram and pram, uninstalling and reinstalling flash player and I actually did an erase and install of SL. And when I almost thought it fixed everything, the skipping and popping came back. I figured it started happening when I upgraded to 10.6 in the software update. It's very annoying! Sometimes when I'm on my headphones, the sound will skip and make a popping sound and the music will play on the speaker and then will go back to my headphones. Although it doesn't happen all the time, it still happens. Even when playing videos in youtube the sound will skip for a few seconds. It's very frustrating. Hope Apple will address this soon.

Are you guys still having problems? If so, what's the solution? Thanks!

My late 2008 MBP will make one big pop about 15s after wakeup. This started right after the Lion upgrade and continues with 10.7.1. I'm a little worried about it damaging the speakers in my 24" cinema display. I am not experiencing the ongoing popping that others have reported.

I did the restart/unplug/five second power button, and it appears to be working. How would you suggest I do this on my wife's MacBook Air.

An Update....

So I originally posted a reply regarding experiecing same problem back in late July, shortly after upgrading to Lion. Eventuall I discovered that the popping would disappear as soon as I would quit "Kitty Spangels Solitaire" (KSS), which I tend to leave open all the time. Curiously, I could reopen the program, and the problem would not crop up again until KSS was left open for 24-36 hours (I rarely shut down my desktop Mac).

Then, after upgrading to OS 10.7.2, the problem entirely disappeared!

Hope that it has resolved for other sufferers.

Fred

I'm in 10.7.2 and the problem still exists. Pretty annoying.

I'm still having this issue with 10.7.3 after a full re-installation. It frustrated me so much, I did more research and testing to find a fix myself. I made an AppleScript Application that renices iTunes and Core Audio, and set it to run as a Login Item for my user account. Because I'm lazy and don't want to enter an admin username and password each time, I stored this in plain text. You might not want to do this (see below):

set ali_admin to {"USERNAME", "PASSWORD"} # Replace with Username and Password of local administrator (in quotes)

set ali_admincheck to count ali_admin

if ali_admincheck is equal to 2 then

tell application "iTunes" to activate

set ali_itunespid to do shell script "ps -axww | grep '[/]iTunes '| awk '{print $1}'"

do shell script "sudo renice -20 -p " & ali_itunespid user name item 1 of ali_admin password item 2 of ali_admin with administrator privileges

do shell script "renice -20 -u _coreaudiod" user name item 1 of ali_admin password item 2 of ali_admin with administrator privileges

end if

For the more security conscious, or those who don't mind the password prompt use:

tell application "iTunes" to activate

set ali_itunespid to do shell script "ps -axww | grep '[/]iTunes '| awk '{print $1}'"

do shell script "sudo renice -20 -p " & ali_itunespid with administrator privileges

do shell script "renice -20 -u _coreaudiod" with administrator privileges

I've not had any audio popping since using this script.

Hope this helps someone.

I found that to temporarily stop the popping, I have to disable all my AirPort Expresses (that are streaming iTunes audio). There's three of them, so I untick the boxes in iTunes. When I only have the Computer audio turned on, the popping stops. As soon as I even turn 1 of the AirPort Expresses on (tick the audio box in iTunes), the popping returns.

Note that the popping only occurs on the Mac, not the AirPort Expresses, streaming the audio. They are fine.

It's like streaming the audio via AirPlay is pushing it's capability over the edge, but just having the computer audio by itself is OK.

Craig.

I have an early 2009 Mac Pro that I just updated to Lion 10.7.4 from Snow Leopard 10.6.8... now I have an everpresent audio hiss with crackles and processor noise.

This must be a core-audio problem, and I can't believe it hasn't been fixed.

I have a feeling this *won't* be fixed as now we have Mountain Lion, and Apple's policy is usually to upgrade to fix your problems. Sigh.

Did anyone else get resolution? Perhaps it's just me?

No, updating to ML won't fix jack.

I have a late 2009 iMac, audio popping all over the place in Lion, same issue in ML. It's a known issue and apple is ignoring it, just continuing to ship more buggy product before fixing the basics.

With their screw up on Maps and and ML it's clear where they are headed. They built their fan base by NOT being short sighted and being focused on making things that WORKED.

Their new stuff is junk.